Those who listened to the State of the Union speeches (and those who didn’t) probably know that both sides promised that going forward would be different. That’s correct! The GOP remembers President Obama’s first two years in office, but he’s not going to do that anymore. Everyone remembers bushco and the six full years the GOP controlled the presidency and both chambers of Congress, but they’re not going to do that anymore. We all know discretionary spending freezes and / or cuts won’t be enough. From there we are in the same boat — different ideas for what will fix the problems and how we tackle the challenges.

The biggest difference I see are those who say they’re Republican leaders. The GOP I’m familiar with doesn’t put Palin, Bachmann, Beck, et al, in the role of spokespersons. What are the differences you see?

87 responses to “Thursday, 1/27/11, Public Square”

You know it’s gonna be a bad day when you open up the front door and standing outside in the cold winter air are 16500 gay atheist IRS agents, hell bent on taking away your guns and imposing socialist sharia laws upon you.

Michelle B. I know you warned us and we didn’t take you seriously. My most humble apologies.

It has long been a given that adult humans — and mammals in general — lack the capacity to grow new nephrons, the kidney’s delicate blood filtering tubules, which has meant that dialysis, and ultimately kidney transplantation, is the only option for the more than 450,000 Americans who have kidney failure.

But a new study by Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers and collaborators at the University of Pittsburgh may turn that paradigm on its head, and someday lead to a new treatment for those suffering from kidney disease.

The study, published online this week (Jan. 26) in the journal Nature, “provides a proof of principle that adult kidney stem cells exist in nature and that treating renal disease with a stem cell-type therapy is theoretically possible.”

Has anyone accidentally or otherwise stepped into the mire labeled WEBlog lately? I thought it was bad before, but now that the OL crowd has found its way there, it truly is a pile of (fill in the word). The majority only make themselves, this city, the state and the country as a whole appeared even dumber than rocks.

I didn’t correct him, but AW used the word ‘angerly.’ Not sure I’m familiar with that one.

What I find most interesting about conservative commentary,
1. For contract loving gun toting 3 corner hat wearing tea party types, they sure do give up easy. People have paid in extra for 30 years to SS per agreements made by Saint Reagan and Lord Greenspan. Now some wingnut says the money is not there. BS, so all someone has to say is you can’t have it. It’s a good thing we are not all sissy conservatives. If we were we would all be serving the english crown……

I didn’t watch the SOTU or the responses, except for the first couple of minutes of Bachman’s online a few minutes ago. She appeared to be cross-eyed, but that suits her inability to think rationally.

Why didn’t I watch it? Because no matter what Obama says, no matter what the Republican response and even the TeaBagger response, very little is going to change. It took 8 years to get to where we are now, it’ll take at least 16 (with decent leadership) to get back to some kind of break even economy. As a single female for the past ten years, I haven’t had the chance to enjoy an economy in which I could live even slightly comfortably. I’m not whining, just stating facts. .

One more thing stem cells may change in the future. And this could be happening now, if not for 8 years of Dubya stagnation
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Okay, one minor point. The study was done with adult stem cells in zebra fish. None of which was delayed, or prohibited, under the Bush Administration. Throw rocks where you may, but the two topics (the study quoted and the Bush administration ban on federally funded embryonic stem cell research) are not related.

Oh, but didn’t GWB sound so presidential when he vowed to capture Bin laden on the pile of rubble after 9/11?

Oh wait a minute – there is another thing for our list – NO CAPTURE of Bin laden in 6+ years. In fact, GWB even stated that he did not even think about Bin laden anymore. What a slap in America’s face.

Compassionate Christian Conservatism – in the words of Sarah Palin – Thanks, but no thanks!

5) Numerous executive orders of which are still in effect today (yeah, that’s right – Obama has those same powers).

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The candidate Obama told us he was going to go through every Executive Order and make sure bushco hadn’t taken on ‘powers’ they shouldn’t have. If it was done, and I highly doubt it was, Obama must have decided he liked all that power too.

I have no idea if this is true but…. checkout the news coming from the middle east lots of protests directed towards their respective governments. The MSM reason, wikileaks release of diplomatic cables. If this is true, rock on people of the middle east take control of YOUR future.

Except for talking much too fast, Meghan McCain is a voice to be heard. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her enter politics in the future. Not too soon. I think she’ll wait until her dad is six feet under.

That’s the part of these stupid GOP / Tea Party women I find most troublesome — there are people who think Palin or Bachmann represent them. Unless you are admitting to being stupid how can stupidity represent you?

Sad to say – there are people who are listening to these Tea Party Republicans and believing each and every idiotic thing they spout
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Corollary: Sad to say – there are people who are listening to President Obama and believing each and every idiotic thing he spouts.

Point being, whether or not it is Obama, or Bachmann, or Palin, or any other damn polititican, their backers may back them, but that doesn’t mean they believe each and every thing they spout.

I remember GWB tellling us that the Iraqi oil would pay for the war (which that never happened) but even after GWB spent how many US dollars on that Iraq War and all we got was a t-shirt that said ‘sucker’?

Quite an interesting article on Michele Bachmann. Interesting also is the section about fact-checking Ms Bachmann. Seems she has been fact checked 13 times and 6 were false but the remaining 7 were ridiculously false. She has never risen above a rating of false.

Even a broken clock is right two times a day – isn’t it?

And then we are supposed to think people who suport her are not really believing everything spouts?

As for Bachmann, I really don;t care about her own way or the other. she is not my representive, I have no say in what she says or does, and i am not a Tea Party person. She doesn;t represent me in any way or fashion.

However, President Obama is my President. He represents me, whether or not I agree with how he is doing so. Apparently, he has some work to do on the truth factor as well.

I think Chris Matthews of Hardball MSNBC may have hit the nail on the head when he said that Bachmann and the Tea Party supporters appear to be white washing the Founding Fathers in an effort to make them infallible.

I suspect in that way, the Tea Party would then become the only party which is the ‘real’ American group.

I agree with Matthews – let’s not white wash the Founding Fathers and treat them historically just as they were – human beings with flaws who did have the greatest desire to form a country that guarantees freedom.

But let’s not white wash the truth when those same human beings – being infallible – allowed slavery to continue. And let’s acknowledge the reason slavery was continued – for economic reasons.

The Constitution is a living document – why would Tea Party people want to keep it in their pocket like some sort of shrine and not adere to it’s true intention to make America a truly free country?

Times change and if we are going to remain free – we need to change the way we do things.

I agree with Matthews – let’s not white wash the Founding Fathers and treat them historically just as they were – human beings with flaws who did have the greatest desire to form a country that guarantees freedom.

But let’s not white wash the truth when those same human beings – being infallible – allowed slavery to continue. And let’s acknowledge the reason slavery was continued – for economic reasons.

So maybe, though it always depends on which statements you decide to investigate, Bachman does poorer research, makes more stupid statements, or just plain makes shchitt up far more than the President. Score one for the President. Thank God, since he does represent me, and Bachmann does not

I think we would all disagree with Minnesota’s 6th congressional district voters. Scary that enough people live in that district who voted for her to get her elected. She didn’t just now become outrageous so there is little excuse for those voters who’ve elected her to be the U.S. Rep twice. Maybe she ran unopposed.

Does poorer research? In what historically correct research would Bachmann get the fact that the founding fathers worked tirelessly to extinguish slavery from our country?’

Just playing along…..In what historically correct research would President Obama get the fact that Social Security, when enacted, only covered widows and orphans?

The plain fact of the matter is, these people depend on others to do their research, they are like the nightly news people, they just read what is given them. Some of them do a better job selecting their research people. I think Bachmann is a news created entitity. They have a mutual love/hate relationship. They deserve each other. Bachman needs to do a better job of fact checking her info, and apologize if she is wrong.

Bachmann put herself in the media spotlight – much like palin continues to do.

As for the media love/hate relationship – doesn’t the media always cover the circus when it comes to town?

As for Obama’s statement about Social Security – one of the original goals for the SS was for widows and orphans – or do you not agree?

But then again, Obama did talk about his father’s military service. But anyone who has ever known grandchildren who were raised by their grandparents often refer to them as parents, which is probably why Obama said father when he was obviously talking about his grandfather.

Now we’ll see how much influence the Tea Party really has in getting those budget cuts.

BTW – notice which political party is going to fight to keep those water tanks that have cost us how many tax dollars so far? I remember we were blogging about this very defense contract a few weeks back. Sec. of Defense Gates canceled this program but it seems to still be an issue on the tabel? Why?

One reason. Jobs.
Another reason: Famously discredited words “You have to go to war with what you have, not what you would like to have”
In other words, constant updating is necessary.
Biggest reason…JOBS

HAHAHAHA. Nobody is yelling. The “nail” is just applying your logic to the President. He lies, and he gets things wrong, why should anyone listen to him?

I make no bones that I disagree with the President a good portion of the time. I have also given him the benefit of the doubt in some things, and kudos for others. Give someone else the Kool-Aid, I’m not thirsty

As for Obama’s statement about Social Security – one of the original goals for the SS was for widows and orphans – or do you not agree?

Not his statement. His statement was that it ONLY co vered widows and orphans. He was wrong.

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But then again, Obama did talk about his father’s military service. But anyone who has ever known grandchildren who were raised by their grandparents often refer to them as parents, which is probably why Obama said father when he was obviously talking about his grandfather

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Nice strawman, since the only one here talking about that here today, is you

This is bizarre news story but then on the other hand, a rather sad story. It’s sad because if what this woman did was to get money to survive, then what other stories are going to be coming to light if draconian budget cuts come only out of Social Security or Medicare?

I see that Sarah Palin entirely missed the ‘Sputnik moment’ in Obama’s SOTU address.

When Obama was talking about this being our Sputnik moment, I took it to mean that we as Americans were taken back and off guard when Russia launched Sputnik. And realizing our ‘sputnik moment’ now is to make sure that we do what is necessary for our country to never be caught off guard again by any other country.

Obviously, Palin missed that part of the speech where Obama called for our fiscal house to be in order?

Or maybe – like so many times before – Palin simply missed the message because it flew over her head?

Yes, let’s cut my healthcare, starting with Obamacare and ending with Medicare. Let’s cut public radio, which gets the majority of its money from grants and sponsors, not from the gov’t. This was tried back when Dubya was president, and it failed. Let’s cut education, because if you listen to Sarah and her friend Michelle, it’s obvious that we’ve already failed to educate in the past, so why bother now and in the future?

I’m trying to figure out what it is about public radio that the conservatives hate so much. Is it the word “public?” Is it that there’s no Rush Limbaugh to denigrate women on a constant basis? Is it that it doesn’t lean far enough right and tries to stay in the middle? Is it because it offers a variety of things, no just “talk radio?” I really would like to know. Any idea who to write and ask?

Cutting state and federal funding will not end public radio. It would more than likely cause some cut in programming, which is what I understood from the brouhaha a few years ago. It’s possible that some orgs might step up and close the gap if that were to happen.

I can only speak for those I know personally that believe the funding should stop. THey are not trying to stop public radio. They believe, rightly or wrongly,

1) that NPR and it’s asssociates are tilted to the left, and therefore, should not be funded by Federal funds as it denigrates other opinions.

2) That today, with the thousands of media outlets out there today, there is no reason to fund any media

3) some combination of the above.

In other words, they are quite aware of the small portion of the NPR budget that comes from the federal government, and are not trying to shut down public radio, but believe that, especially in times of financial austerity, there is no need to fund it with tax dollars. It can do fine on it’s own, and if it cannot, then it needs to go.

I suspect you know some deluded people. But, please, continue to believe them.

The problem the Right has with NPR is that it doesn’t lean their direction, although I doubt any of them have ever listened to any of the programming. Have them read the history of public radio, because without it, they might not have the chance to listen to the programming they want to hear.

You can suspect all you want. I gave you their opinion, not necessarily mine. I do believe NPR leans to the left. I listen about 2 hours each day. And while I beleive it trends to the left, it does so in an intelligent, thoughtful way.

The bigger question, in my mind, is why should it receive Federal funds at all?
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Does Rupert Murdock or any of his media companies receive subsidies

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TO my knowledge, no. But my knowledge is limited. Why don;t youdo some research and find out?

Maybe do some research as to why we even have public radio – and that would answer your bigger question?

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This is not the 1950s, 1960s, nor is it the “early” days of radio that colleges and universities are experimenting with a new medium. So tell me again why it should be federally funded. Oh yeah, you didn;t answer the question to start with.